Posts for the ‘Small Business Project Advice’ Category
Airing Sunday on MSNBC
I’ll be on MSNBC’s Your Business this Sunday at 7:30am ET. Yes, DVR would be a good option. Jean Chatzky did a great job filling in as host for the consumate JJ Ramberg. But, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t crazy about the other guest. I didn’t find him particularly gracious as will be evident when you watch the episode.
No Comments »How to Overcome Objections
Don’t feel bad, uncertain or get tunnel vision working to overcome sales objections, just eliminate them entirely. I know, I know… very funny, wise guy. But, it’s no joke. Despite what the bulk of the nearly 250,000 sales books out there say, objections don’t always follow an easy 1-2-3 overcome-me formula. Sure facts, figs and pointing out the bennies (benefits) are often going to help you make the sale, but if a prospect fundamentally objects to what you are offering it’s doubtful a 3-step plan is going to secure the sale.
So, what’s bigger, better and far more fun than overcoming objections? Eliminating them entirely. Why change a prospect’s mind, when you can change your product. Yeah, you heard me. Improve your product or service so you don’t get the objections in the first place. Novel, I tell you!
Now, unfortunately, many sales people will have their hands tied because they’re not in on the design or re-design of the products they are selling. But if you are an entrepreneur, you’re not only designing your product, you’re in charge of it. You’re the boss. You are in the unique position of being able to give customers exactly what they want. Let’s take a look at your product from the clients’ perspective. I just had to go through this very assessment.
www.BookedSolidU.com was launched on January 1st. Booked Solid University is a business university and coaching program that offers everything you need to be a small business success. Based on my experience and certain tested (or so I thought) assumptions, I designed the program to give newer business owners exactly what they need:
- Long-term commitment to learning and business mastery (12 months).
- Content, answers, advice and all the information business owners need to succeed.
- Live, interactive coaching for accountability and commitment making fulfillment.
People did enroll the first month, my most ideal type of big thinking clients, but far more people inquired and never took action. The 3 primary objections I heard were:
Objection 1: The enrollment fees are reasonable, but I don’t know if I can commit to a full 12 months.
(Read: financial and time commitment too long, creating fear.)
Objection 2: Even though all of the content seems like it’s just what I need to succeed, what if I take on too much, choose the wrong learning path or don’t have time to handle the workload.
(Read: too many options and choice of own learning path too big and idea, creating overwhelm.)
Objection 3: I just don’t know if I’ll get the personal coaching I need.
(Read: even though the best Book Yourself Solid Certified Coaches are available to personally coach, they either didn’t feel it was extensive enough or they felt my personal presence was missing.)
Notice anything about these two lists? Yeah, you’re right. They’re the same. The features I thought would be most helpful to my ideal clients, turned out to be what was most objectionable.
I could have done my best Zig Zigler to demonstrate why:
Making a long-term commitment to learning in action is so important to entrepreneurial success.
Designing your own customized curriculum is the most efficient, time effective and elegant way to get exactly what you need, at the right time.
Working with experts, other than me, brings a more expansive and diverse set of viewpoints, solutions and success strategies.
And believe me, at first, I tried. But, clients repeated these same objections and I remembered that we don’t always want to buy what we need. A better solution, a more elegant solution, one that eliminates friction during the sales cycle, would be to redesign my offering to fit exactly what my clients both need and want. Seems obvious but often it’s not what is done. Here’s what changed. We…
Eliminated the long-term commitment objection with a “pay as you go” plan and a full 30-day money back guarantee.
Created short-term and specifically prescribed coaching modules, each designed to help the client achieve one specific result, at a time. Overwhelm objection—gone!
Kept the Michael Port brand in tact and made my personal coaching more available and visible. Uncertain business results objection—gone!
And that’s not all that’s changed. Even the way that I present the entire concept of Booked Solid U has shifted because of these simple, yet fundamental changes. Check out the site to see what I mean.
Now, these 3 fixes alone might seem obvious and simple to you. But, believe me, when in the middle of a major product launch, with 1000’s of moving pieces and people, the solution was not so obvious and the overcome objection tunnel was getting longer and longer. Clients want easy. They need a simple system that focuses their time and attention on the simplest and most elegant solution. And, that’s what the new, and better, BSU is—easy.
When I started assessing Booked Solid U, I used the same 3-step process I’ve always used to fix nearly every problem in my business. Try it yourself.
3 Steps To Eliminate Objections Or Solve Any Other Problem
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, ask yourself how you can reconfigure what you have and turn it into what you want (something that will create better results).
Don’t make big, sweeping changes. Instead, make the smallest possible changes to the design of the product that will produce the biggest possible results.
Don’t go it alone. Bring your clients, and every single member of your team into the redesign process at the earliest possible moment to produce the most elegant solution.
Of course, you and I both know it’s unlikely we will be able to eliminate all client objections. But ask yourself first, which objections can be eliminated with small product changes? Many times the biggest objections can be easily eliminated just by adjusting or reconfiguring your product. Now, you’ve got a conversation going without ever running into the big, pressing, unwieldy objections that throw clients into a stall pattern or, worse yet, entirely off track.
So, please, go to bookedsolidu.com and see if I’ve overcome your objections.
Booked Solid University Free Iphone App – It’s Ready!
It’s official. The FREE Booked Solid U Small Business Success app for the iPhone and iPod is available.
You’ll get daily tips, advice, support and inspiration sent directly to your phone. You’ll never have to come back to this site again.
How do you like them apples?
Just go to the apps store at iTunes and search for the “Booked Solid U” app. Click the FREE download button and, before you know it, you’ll be smarter than you’ve ever been.
3 Comments »Free Small Business Networking & Referral Group
Sometimes I love working alone and others times I hate it. It can be lonely and isolating. I much prefer collaborating and connecting with others. Sure, we have all the social media outlets but they can be overwhelming, unfocused, and filled with irrelevant ideas and information.
So, last year, I created the Booked Solid Referral Network. It was a free online community for business owners who wanted to connect with each other in very purposeful and profitable ways. Specifically around networking and referrals . Because, if you network with the right people, you’ll get more referrals. It worked. In just a few short months over 3500 business owners joined . We were building something special.
But I closed it down. Don’t worry, it’s back up now. I closed it because the massive software platform we were using sucked, plain and simple. It was too big and offered too much. I since learned that sometimes, less is more.
So, today, we re-open the doors to the Booked Solid Referral Network. It’s streamlined and simplified. It’ll take us a few months to grow the community but I wanted to personally invite you to be a charter member and build the community in your image.
Sign up takes 2 minutes and it’s free. No strings attached. Go for it!
1 Comment »How to get the job done and be more productive
Parkinson’s Law posits that work will expand so as to fill the time available for its completion. Meaning, the more time you have to get something done, the more time it will take you. It is called Parkinson’s Law because it was first articulated by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay he published in The Economist in 1955. It was later reprinted together with other essays in the book Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress (London, John Murray, 1958).
I’ve often heard that time management strategies are supposed to help get the job done and be more productive. But, I think the idea of time management is misleading. I don’t think you can manage time because time is a finite concept. There are only a certain number of minutes in an hour, hours in a day, and days in a week. They do not expand or contract according to our will. Plus, you don’t always know how much time it’s going to take to complete a project or task.
However, we can manage our commitments.
Commitments are manageable because you can prioritize commitments. When you do, you focus on the most important commitments to get the job done and be more productive. It’s really a rather simple concept. Spend your time making and managing your commitments and then go about fulfilling them. Simple as that. If you master the skill of commitment making and fulfilling as your methodology for being more productive, you’ll find you make better commitments. And, you’ll stop over-committing to unattractive or unproductive initiatives. Instead, you’ll be more selective with respect to the commitments you make and cultivate more excitement and passion to fulfill those commitments. Bottom line: you’ll get the job done and be more productive.
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Resource for commitment making and fulfilling: www.cothrive.com (I don’t have any financial connection to company or product but I do use it personally to make and fulfill my commitments. It helps me get the job done and be more productive.)
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